Dating Barling Pipes: A Three Step Guide
To see our currently available Barling and Barling’s Make pipes, click here.
As MBSD sells many restored estate pipes, we often get questions as to when they were made. Many pipes, such as Castellos, Charatans or Custom-Bilts, have communities of collectors who prefer pipes made during one period or under one owner over others, though preferences vary. Pipes that are usually stamped with a date of manufacture, such as Dunhills, attract both collectors who prefer certain periods, as well as buyers who want a pipe made the same year that they were born – commonly called a ‘birth year pipe’ – or from the same year as a special event in their life, such as their marriage.
With some pipes, however, identifying the date or period of manufacture can be tricky, even with the internet at your fingertips. Here at MBSD, we understand how important a pipe’s provenance can be, which is why we have a team of dedicated researchers to make sure that our products are accompanied by accurate information that will help buyers make informed choices.
Because we want to be as transparent as possible, there are some occasions where it helps to have a more extensive explanation of how we date a certain pipe or make, which is something that wouldn’t fit into a single product description. That’s what write-ups like these are for. And in this write-up, we’re going to cover a make that causes quite a bit of confusion when it comes to dating their pipes: Barling, otherwise known as Barling’s Make.
Dating Barlings can be quite complicated, and the finer details of this process are subject to debate between renowned Barling historians, such as Richard Carleton Hacker, Tad Gage, Jesse Silver, and Jonathan Guss. This article is not an intervention in those debates; instead, it is an explanation of how MBSD uses the contributions of these pipe scholars to date the Barling pipes that come to us, and to present what we’ve learned from these scholars in a way that is as easy to follow as possible.
To keep things simple, we’ll run through three key questions to ask when trying to discern when a Barling was made. Then we’ll explain the four most significant ‘periods’ or ‘eras’ of Barling pipes manufacture that smokers and collectors look out for. In this article, we’ll only talk about main-brand briar Barling pipes. In a follow-up article, we’ll talk about Barling sub-brands, such as Londoner and B.B. & S., as well as Barlings made from Turkish and African meerschaum.
To use this guide to date a Barling pipe, please answer the following three questions in order. You can skip the questions altogether if you simply want to learn about the different periods and places in which the pipes were made, but the questions will only give an accurate indication of any given Barling if they are answered in the order they are stated. Answering the third question without answering the second, for example, will not give an accurate indication of when a particular Barling was made.
Questions
First Question: Silver Hallmarks
Usually, the most precise way to date a pipe is through silver hallmarks. Not all pipes have sterling silver decorations on them, and neither do all Barling pipes. But those that do (such as caps, spigots, mounts, or bands) will have hallmarks on them if the silver is sterling and if the silver was used in the UK. This is because sterling silver in the UK has been regulated since the 17th century in order to guarantee its purity. You will need to read the hallmarks to work out the date they signify. If you’re not sure how to read UK hallmarks, guides can be found online. The first question to ask is whether your Barling has any sterling silver on it and whether this silver has hallmarks. In other words, if your Barling has any sterling silver on it, and if that silver has hallmarks on it, what date do those hallmarks signify? The following answers will tell you what to do next:
- If pre-1959, go straight to the Family Era section.
- If 1960-1980, go to Question 2.
- If no hallmarks, go to Question 2.
Second Question: The ‘Barling’ Stamp
Not all Barling pipes feature silverwork. For these pipes, the exact year of manufacture cannot be identified. But that doesn’t mean those pipes can’t be dated to specific periods in time. To do this, we need to look at how the name ‘Barling’ is stamped on the pipe, usually on the sides or the underside of the shank (the long wooden part). How the ‘Barling’ name was stamped on Barling pipes changed several times throughout the many decades of their manufacture, meaning it can help us narrow down when a Barling was made. The question, then, is: what does the ‘Barling’ name look like on the stamping on your pipe? The following answers will tell you what to do next:
1. If it has ‘BARLING’S’ in an arch over the word ‘MAKE’, go to Question 3.
2. If ‘Barling’s’ in a straight line over the words ‘GUINEA-GRAIN REG.’, go straight to the Family Era section.
3. If ‘Barling’ in a straight line, above any of the following: a shape number (e.g., ‘4109’), a finish or grade (e.g., ‘Garnet Grain’), or a UK region of manufacture (e.g., ‘LONDON ENGLAND’, ‘ENGLAND’); go straight to the Post-transition Era, English-made section.
4. ‘BARLING’S MAKE’ in a straight line over a grade (such as ‘GARNET GRAIN’) and ‘LONDON ENGLAND’, go straight to the Post-transition Era, English-made section.
5.If ‘Barling’ in a straight line over ‘MAKE’ and ‘INTERNATIONAL’, go straight to the Post-transition Era, Danish-made section.
6. If ‘Barling’ in a straight line, not above any other nomenclature, go straight to the Kopp Era section.
Third and Final Question: Shape Numbers
If you’ve made it this far, your Barling pipe was made between 1909 and 1962. To narrow this down further, there’s one more question to answer. Between these years, Barling used different systems for identifying the shapes of their pipes. Knowing what the system for your pipe is will help to identify particular periods in its manufacture. The question, then, is: if your pipe has a shape number on it, which of the following describes that number?
1. If it has no shape number, go straight to the Family Era section.
2. If two-digit shape number, go straight to the Family Era section.
3. If three-digit shape number, go straight to the Family Era section.
4. If four-digit shape number beginning with ‘1’, go straight to the Family Era section.
5. Four-digit shape number beginning with any number other than ‘1’, go straight to the Transition Era section.
Periods and Places of Manufacture
Now that you’ve got a sense of when your Barling was made, we will provide a short history of Barling pipes, presented in the divisions of manufacturing periods that are commonly used by pipe historians and collectors.
Family Era, AKA Pre-transition, Pipes (~1906-9 to late-1960)
While the earliest Barling pipes date back to 1812, with the founding of B. Barling and Sons by Benjamin Barling, it was not until some time around 1906-9 that B. Barling and Sons started to make their own briar pipes. It is the briar pipes made by B. Barling and Sons that are commonly known as ‘Family Era,’ or ‘Pre-transition’ pipes, as it was during, this time that the Barling family both owned the Barling name and made the Barling pipes. All but one line of these pipes was accordingly stamped ‘BARLING’S MAKE.’ The one exception to this rule were the Guinea Grain pipes exported to the United States; These pipes were instead stamped ‘Barling’s’ in cursive script, above ‘GUINEA GRAIN REGD’ in block letters (this practice was carried on through to the Transition Era, however those pipes can be distinguished by their shape codes).
As the Barling family were silversmiths before making pipes, the pipes they made sometimes featured ornate sterling silverwork, which by law was stamped with London hallmarks. Other stamps used during this time included:
- the names of retailers who sold Barling’s Make pipes (e.g., J.J. Fox);
- size codes (e.g., ‘S’ for small, ‘S-M’ for small-medium, ‘M’ for medium, etc.);
- finish names and grades (e.g., Fossil, Ye Olde Wood, Guinea Grain)
- the place of manufacture (England)
- and shape numbers (e.g., 86, 537, 1401).
Family Era pipes from before World War II tended to have minimal stamping and would often simply have the Barling’s Make stamp and, where applicable, the retailers they were sold through. After the war, other stampings, such as size codes and shape numbers, became more common features. As implied in our questions, however, Family Era shape codes were either two or three digits, or four digits beginning with the number ‘1.’ Four-digit codes beginning with other numbers became standard in the next era. The stem stamp, two crossed ‘BARLING’s, was used as early as the 1920s, but it appears that this was not used consistently.
Transition Era Pipes (late-1960 to mid-1962)
In October 1960, the Barling family sold B. Barling and Sons to Finlay & Co., a British chain of tobacconists who had previously sold Barling’s Make pipes. While Finlay & Co. (later simply known as ‘Finlay’) owned the Barling company, the Barling family continued to manage and manufacture Barling’s Make pipes until around the middle of 1962. Finlay then fired the Barling family and brought in new management and pipe-makers. This is the reason why 1960-62 is considered the ‘transition’ era: though there have been numerous ‘transitions’ that B. Barling and Sons has undergone over the last 100-plus years, ’60-’62 is the era when Barling pipes transitioned away from Barling family involvement.
Pipes from this era are commonly mistaken for other eras due to their changing stamping practices. Some pipes made during the Finlay ownership still have the ‘BARLING’s MAKE’ nomenclature of the preceding era, while others simply have ‘Barling’ in a straight, cursive script. It is presumed that the former were pipes made prior to the departure of the Barling family, hence still being stamped ‘Barling’s Make.’
The other nomenclature on Transition Era pipes is reasonably consistent with the post-WW2 Family Era. Where these pipes differed most recognizably, however, was in their shape numbers, which were four digits and began with ‘2,’ ‘3,’ ‘4,’ ‘5,’ or ‘6’ (e.g., 5109, 4085).
Post-transition Era, English-made Pipes (1962-1990s)
As mentioned in the section for the Transition Era, this period of manufacture got its name in relation to the position of the Barling family in the B. Barling and Sons company. However, the period commonly known as the ‘Post-transition Era’, which stretches from 1963 to around the turn of the 21st century, underwent plenty of ‘transitions’ of its own, with more changes in how and where Barling pipes were produced than any other in the common periodization. Consequently, the ‘Post-transition Era’ can be very confusing to navigate, especially since Barling pipes made during this period used a wide variety of stamping conventions.
The event that kicked off what’s known as the ‘Post-transition Era’ was the total merger of Finlay into Imperial Tobacco Group. Finlay was already partly owned by Imperial at this point, having a 40% stake in the company. In February 1963, Imperial bought the remaining shares in Finlay, meaning it now also owned B. Barling and Sons.
Barling pipes continued to be manufactured at the Barling factories previously owned by Finlay until 1970, when Imperial closed these factories and outsourced Barling pipe production to other English pipe companies, as well as to Nørding in Denmark (see next section). In the 1970s, Imperial also changed the Barling company name to ‘Barling of England’. This state of affairs continued until 1980, when Imperial ceased production of all Barling pipes.
That same year, however, the Barling name was purchased from Imperial by another UK company, Bucktrout & Co. From 1980 until some time in the 1990s, therefore, Barling pipes continued to be made under the company name ‘Barling Pipes Ltd.’
The stamping conventions during this ‘era’ are equally complicated, if not more so, as tying a particular stamp to a specific time within the tumultuous three-plus decades just discussed is often impossible. In almost all cases, the common denominator in post-1962 Barlings is the stamping of the name ‘Barling’ in a single line of cursive script. This includes the Kopp Era, which will be discussed below. Unlike Kopp Era pipes, Post-transition Era Barlings that were made in England were stamped indicating this region of manufacture.
However, one exception to this rule that must be noted is a series of pipes produced under Imperial in the late 1970s, which are stamped ‘BARLING’S MAKE’ in a straight line of block lettering.
Post-transition Era, Danish-made Briar Pipes (1970s)
When the Barling factory premises in London were closed, Imperial looked elsewhere to find manufacturers for Barling pipes. Strangely enough, they enlisted Erik Nørding’s Nørding company to make Barlings, with these pipes being marketed as ‘Barling Make International’ (notably without the ‘s’). Presumably this is because it was the 1970s, and during this time Danish and Danish-style pipes were increasingly popular (other companies similarly enlisted Danish makers to produce pipes for them, such as Lane Ltd. and Dunhill, who had figures such as Preben Holm make their Ben Wade and Harcourt pipes). Those who are familiar with certain Nørding shapes and shape numbers will easily recognize the designs of the Barling Make International pipes.
These pipes are very simple to identify, due to being stamped ‘MADE IN DENMARK,’ in addition to the ‘BARLING MAKE INTERNATIONAL’ nomenclature.
Kopp Era (2020 onwards)
In 2020, the German tobacconist Kopp GmbH (formerly Kolhase & Kopp) bought the rights to the Barling name. Kopp subsequently brought Barling pipes back into the global market, with finishes based on Family Era lines. So far, these pipes have mostly been drilled to accommodate 9mm filters, as is the standard in Germany.
Many of these pipes feature ornate silverwork, however as these pipes are not produced in the UK, they do not feature hallmarks. Where engravings are present, they are purely ornamental, such as the ‘B. B.’ insignia on the Benjamin (Barling) line. Kopp Barling pipes are furthermore stamped only with the ‘Barling’ brand name (in a cursive script) and the name of the line (e.g., ‘Marylebone,’ ‘Trafalgar’) and finish (e.g., ‘Ye Olde Wood,’ ‘Bark’).
Conclusion
We hope you’ve found this guide helpful for understanding how Barling pipes are typically dated. If you liked the guide, or if there’s anything you think we’ve missed, we’d love to hear from you in the comments or by using our contact form. MBSD frequently has Barling pipes from each of its various periods and places of manufacture, including Family Era/Pre-transition pipes. You can find some of these pipes by clicking the link here, or you can contact us to ask if we have any that will be on the website in the near future.
Lastly, if you have a Barling that you would like to sell or to trade in for MBSD store credit, we would love to hear from you, which you can do by using the contact form linked above.
